Selly Oak Still Letting the Troops Down?

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LE

Despite assurances from ministers and hospital managers that the care for servicemen at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, was now excellent, Capt Martin Hewitt said the "truth" about the continued poor care for troops had to be exposed as it was "unacceptable".

The officer, who was decorated twice for bravery in Afghanistan, said soldiers traumatised by battlefield injuries had to share "understaffed and overstretched" wards with elderly civilian patients.

Old-Salt

welll what do you expect.
non medical DGs of AMS.
end of mil hospitals.
a govt policy of equality meaning our troops get same treatment as drug addled, dole supported,alcohol fueled scum.
madness.
saw it coming in 91-left RAMC then,stayed in UK and reserves till end of 90s when it was clear the game was up.
UK centre for scum.
hiv pos asylum seekers welcomed,ghurkas not.
war widows in penury,dole seekers given more benefits for illegitamate kids.
feckless youth feted as special ,whilst soldiers decried as war crims.
schools not allowed to have christian content or army careers in, whilst mad mullas preach death in front of our police.
madness.
last sane person in UK please switch light off-no just leave it on,no one is working so it wont be paid anyway.

Clanker

welll what do you expect.
non medical DGs of AMS.
end of mil hospitals.
a govt policy of equality meaning our troops get same treatment as drug addled, dole supported,alcohol fueled scum.
madness.
saw it coming in 91-left RAMC then,stayed in UK and reserves till end of 90s when it was clear the game was up.
UK centre for scum.
hiv pos asylum seekers welcomed,ghurkas not.
war widows in penury,dole seekers given more benefits for illegitamate kids.
feckless youth feted as special ,whilst soldiers decried as war crims.
schools not allowed to have christian content or army careers in, whilst mad mullas preach death in front of our police.
madness.
Here Here i second that and bolloxs leave the pilot light on and dont cancel the milk either
last sane person in UK please switch light off-no just leave it on,no one is working so it wont be paid anyway.

LE

Despite assurances from ministers and hospital managers that the care for servicemen at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, was now excellent, Capt Martin Hewitt said the "truth" about the continued poor care for troops had to be exposed as it was "unacceptable".

The officer, who was decorated twice for bravery in Afghanistan, said soldiers traumatised by battlefield injuries had to share "understaffed and overstretched" wards with elderly civilian patients.

LE

Those resources will have been squandered by succesive govts as a defense windfall and use to keep themselves in flat screen TVs, hookers, rent boys and badger watching expeds for the welsh. Not forgetting foreign language teachers for foreign cnuts who bleed our welfare state dry!

[align=center]New call to save Haslar as soldiers catch superbugs[/align]
A new call has been made to save the Royal Hospital Haslar after the revelation that eight wounded soldiers being treated at Haslar's replacement have caught superbugs. The personnel caught the bugs on the wards at Birmingham Selly Oak Hospital's Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in the last 12 months.

Seven of the soldiers in Selly Oak caught Clostridium Difficile while one soldier, 19-year-old Private Jamie Cooper, caught MRSA twice after he was moved to an NHS ward at the health unit so he could be treated for shrapnel injuries.

The news comes as 16,019 signatures against the closure have been collected by the Save Haslar Taskforce, which will be handed over to Parliament later this month.

A protest march is also in the pipeline for June 29 in a last ditch attempt to hang on to the hospital, which was voted the second cleanest in Britain last year.

Head of the taskforce Councillor Peter Edgar said: 'Haslar is virtually bug free, it doesn't have problems with superbugs because it's spotless. Everybody comes back and tells me the same thing â the place is very clean and it is unique in not having problems with superbugs.

'This just adds to the case to retain part of the site for the rehabilitation of troops.'

Fiona Alexandra, spokeswoman for University Hospital of Birmingham Trust, which operates Selly Oak confirmed that the cases had been recorded.

She added: 'We have significantly reduced the numbers of cases of superbug infection.'

LE

Whilst I'm not saying that what is happening now is right yet, it needs to be borne in mind that Capt. Hewitt's stay in Selly Oak, which is what he appears to be referring to in the article, was nearly a year ago when there were a lot of threads on here about Selly Oak.

I believe things have improved somewhat since then (though see my first comment...). The superbug criticism is still, however, very valid.

The timing seems to be connected with the launch of SOPARA, to support the PARA soldiers who are on ops.

[align=center]New call to save Haslar as soldiers catch superbugs[/align]
A new call has been made to save the Royal Hospital Haslar after the revelation that eight wounded soldiers being treated at Haslar's replacement have caught superbugs. The personnel caught the bugs on the wards at Birmingham Selly Oak Hospital's Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in the last 12 months.

Seven of the soldiers in Selly Oak caught Clostridium Difficile while one soldier, 19-year-old Private Jamie Cooper, caught MRSA twice after he was moved to an NHS ward at the health unit so he could be treated for shrapnel injuries.

The news comes as 16,019 signatures against the closure have been collected by the Save Haslar Taskforce, which will be handed over to Parliament later this month.

A protest march is also in the pipeline for June 29 in a last ditch attempt to hang on to the hospital, which was voted the second cleanest in Britain last year.

Head of the taskforce Councillor Peter Edgar said: 'Haslar is virtually bug free, it doesn't have problems with superbugs because it's spotless. Everybody comes back and tells me the same thing â the place is very clean and it is unique in not having problems with superbugs.

'This just adds to the case to retain part of the site for the rehabilitation of troops.'

Fiona Alexandra, spokeswoman for University Hospital of Birmingham Trust, which operates Selly Oak confirmed that the cases had been recorded.

She added: 'We have significantly reduced the numbers of cases of superbug infection.'

Depends where to, to what music and armed with what? I am becoming more Cromwellian as I get older.

The problem is is that none of the politicos or high up MoD Staff (and I include Uniforms in this) are going to admit they made a mistake - well they did and everybody knows it. A simple " Sorry, we made a decision but in hindsight it was wrong and we are now going to change that decision" would be welcome by eerybody and they might even get a bit of kudos from it.

Although I am not sure if honesty and integrity are worth a fcuk these days.

War Hero

At the end of the day Selly Oak is an NHS trust and is run like the others as a VERY BAD business (If they were any good they would get paid twice as much as managers in the private sector).

No matter how many military resources we provide it will always be civilian led and therefore our boys and girls will get the same level of care as a benefits cheat and any other drudgery society can offer up as bed blockers.

Selly Oak does however have better facilities than RH Haslar ever has or will. Haslar wouldnt know what the hell to do with a polytrauma victim and would be the first to admit it.

Even if we miraculously discovered the funding for our own hospital and could ensure that it had all the latest kit, we could never guarantee we could treat our own. Partly because our medical staff like the rest of teh services would be on Ops and partly because we just dont have the clinical specialties required.

An example would be how many of our boys and girls who get caught in an IED or VBIED suffer from bad burns and just how many specialist Burns beds are available at any one time across the WHOLE of the UK?

Ask your MP...

Long gone are the days when the AMS/DMS or whatever we will be called. Will be able to look after its own outside of our in theatre assets (Which are still very well run facilities)

Anyway good job on teh Para Capt speaking up, although I think he will probably get a thousand phonecalls including one from Gen Dannet calling him a CNUT

LE

Not everywhere but it is a lottery. Specialist units with funding, good staffing & attitude are world class. Many other places are OK. Some are not great but the staff do what they can with available resources and care.

But there are complete nightmares and they seem to be spreading, the common feature being p1ssed off staff and a system run for the benefit of bureacratic career advancement.

Friend of Mrs B, went back to work for a NHS Trust after a 5 year kiddie break. Her previous job had been for a Local Authority dealing with Insurance and Litigation matters. She claimed that there was no job that could ever be as bad and depressing as that had been. Wrong.

Micro disputes over stupid things turning into big blow ups, patients being dumped out of A&E onto a wards or maybe the street just before the target time limit is up, refusal of Team A members or work with or talk to Team B members, total inabilty to gain attention of the "Senior Management" unless money or a target is involved, medics and nurses doing their best but best efforts hampered by idiotic management and worst of all discovering vital information was being witheld, she was being told lies and her own outputs distorted.

Despite being a total crock of sh1t, all was well. Nothing to worry about. Everything under control. Steady as she goes. Everything possible being done. Improvements continue. Targets met. Report only happy things up the chain. Nobody wants to hear of anything negative without an instant, snappy and happy sound bite solution already being attached. No solution possible with existing resources? Well then there cannot really be a problem, can there?

So after 12 weeks she resigned and sent the Chief Executive a letter setting out why and what she felt was wrong. Response was a "deep regrets" letter with some laughable mutterings about legal action if she disclosed what were termed as "untrue or misleading facts".

MIA

I've been following the story of Selly Oak for a few years, ever since my own passing experience of the place.

Late in 2002 during Op Fingal near the end of the tour, I decided to launch myself down a set of stairs ending up with one bust ankle! In the words of the German doc who looked after me, "For you Jock, the war is over..." he had a sense of humour! I was duly aeromed evacuated via Thumrait and Akrotiri to Brize. Aeromed staff looked after me so well that I felt a bit of a fraud in that I only had a bust ankle and it was my own fault, no comparison with the guys that have been evacuated with serious wounds now. I have the utmost admiration for those girls who fussed over me, I was even very relaxed with the very gay male RAF medic who looked after me at Thumrait for three days!

Anyway, on arrival at Brize I was met by an RAF liaison bod who took me up to Selly Oak and handed me over to the staff there. That is where the "service" ended. A very irate member of the military staff in civis with a stinking attitude stood and berated me in the car park outside A&E for turning up in Uniform! Mind you it was still a bit dusty! although I did change uniform at Thumrait, I only had a daysack with a change of underwear, wash & shave kit, the only civis I had was a set of trackies. I made sure I had the final say! he stormed into the hospital and dumped in the fracture clinic. The NHS staff were attentive and pleasent and I was seen in about 2 hours. I felt a bit uncomfortable sitting waiting for an X-Ray as about dozen "ethnics" sat and stared at me. I was saved by an elderly gentleman who shook my hand and sat down with me. We had a brew together, he had been an old soldier and he was waiting for his wife.

After treatment I had to make my way up to the admin cell on the hospital site. you had to ring a buzzer, someone let you in and you had to climb a steep set of stairs, difficult with a stooky on and with crutches! Waited while someone could be bothered to acknowledge me and was duly briefed. I would have to stay overnight in the "hostel" and then travel North in the morning. I was given a rail warrant and told to report back for plaster off and a review in 6 weeks time. I was then given directions to the hostel.

I won't describe the hostel, those of you who have been there will understand. Although comfortable and clean there was limited catering and food consisted of frozen microwave meals. Brews thankfully was unlimited! The rooms had army bunkbeds and it was about 6 to a room. The duty bod explained to me that it was unwise to go outside afterdark and the security system was in operation 24 hours due to anti-war nutters and muslim fanatics out to get us!!!

The duty bod phoned a taxi for me in the morning to take me to the railway station, I had to pay for this myself and claim it back off my parent unit, which incidently was RTMC, eventually my parent TA unit reimbursed me when they found out. 8 hours later I arrived at my destination to be met by my mum and dad, big hug from dad and tears from mum, nearly had me in tears! HOME!

A week later out of the blue while recuperating at mum and dads I received a phone call from a major at 2 Div in Edinburgh. He had come accross my name on a medevac list and had taken me on as my liaison officer. He sorted everything out and got me into MRS at Redford for about 2 months. When fully fit I was demobbed through RTMC.

My point is there was no way those facilities at Selly Oak were going to be adequate given the Iraq expedition about to kick off and then Afghanistan going to go the same way. The government, the MOD and some senior officers should have had their arsses kicked for letting the forces medical services get to such a low state. I had heard that the wards that were staffed by military staff were closed because those staff had been warned off for ops! Who the F**K was going to look after the wounded troops when they came home?

Thankfully my experience of the new way of doing things was brief and I'll keep up to date with developments....

LE

That's not the answer dunc, if a Gov wants to send its troops to war it has a moral obligation to look after them, and that means a dedicated Military Hospital. IRRC, we are now the only Western country without one now, and we're also lacking a Gov with any morals too.

Think of a herd of cats briefly all moving in the same direction due to a random quantum fluctuation...

"It costs money to have children...if you don't have any....then don't have them. It is THAT simple. " - Mr_Deputy